Subject: prayer/health rant

Bartcop,
In reading your insightful (and humorous) site for a couple of years now,
I can only remember maybe one or two times I disagreed with what you
had to say. But I disagree with your vehement denouncement of the recent
prayer and health article "People Who Are Prayed for Fare Better"
Actually, I despise the connotations of the article, especially it's title,
that panders to the right-wing religious zealots. But I DO agree
there might be something to the basic idea that even indirect spiritual
contact with another person might be beneficial to their health.

Tony, I have nothing to gain by taking that belief away from you,
unless you're messing with meaningful legislation or my children.
 

Please note (and conservatives should note) that the article stated that
it didn't matter what form of prayer was used--Christian, Buddhist, Hindu
--whatever. Patients improved regardless of the prayer methodology
and ideology. What does that have to say about the so-called Christians
who think THEIR way is the ONLY way?

So, it's like a store accepting coupons from competitors?
Why would God encourage false religions by honoring requests sent via prayers
from people who are traveling down the wrong path?   Seems to me a better plan
would be to honor the prayers of the TRUE religion, therefore converting others.
I guess when I get to Heaven, God will explain it to me...
 

At any rate, I've seen (but at that time had no inclination to specifically "log")
other scientific, well researched studies that indicated that patients did better
in similar circumstances. In these studies, People of different spiritualities,
and even those with no spirituality at all, projected whatever mental imagery
they thought appropriate or helpful to the patients (the Christians in the studies
called it "prayer"), and patients improved at rates significantly higher than those
who did not receive such prayer.

No, that's crazy. It's not possible.
Maybe the younger patients did better, or the thinner patients, or the balding
patients, possibly proving that the gene that causes baldness might help to fight
whatever the specific malady is, but I guarantee you prayer had nothing to do with it.
 

A few studies I heard about also placed a glass of water on the end table of
the patient, and the water was analyzed before and after the "prayer."

Not only did patients (somewhat subjectively) improve, but the post-prayer water
(objectiviely) was found to have had greatly reduced quantities of free-radicals
(reactive molecules that are responsible for many diseases--including cancer
--and that stifle the body's immune/healing system).

No, sorry, that's more crazy talk.
(Note that I'm not calling you crazy. I believe you were misled by faulty data.)
Prayer is a cruel joke played on those who want to believe.
If prayer worked, EVERYONE would believe in it because all you'd have to do
is pray and your prayers would be answered - right?

As a young captive of the Catholic POW camps, I was told God decides which
prayers will be answered. In other words, prayer works when God's in the mood,
and funny how he gets in the mood about the exact same percentage of time that the
laws of physics dictate.

It's just like Vegas. Those three sevens will come up on that slot machine on an average
of once every fifty thousand pulls. If you pray, and get three sevens, they were just due.
To quote Mr. Spock, "There was no deity involved."
 

While this research did not demonstrate the cause of the change, there has been substantial
research documenting that these kinds of scientific and objective changes do indeed occur.

No, I'm certain that's not correct.
Why didn't the head researcher get Randi's million dollars?
Now, I can buy a random medical turnaround of someone who was prayed for because
people surprise doctors everyday by dying or not dying. But the chemical content water
in a glass CAN NOT change because someone prayed over it.
 

And, if you want to look at science, the most fundamental (and therefore, meaningful)
science is quantum physics (the study of sub-atomic particles and waves)-- and while
I'm not an expert in this field and cannot articulate that science very well (especially in a
reasonably short writing such as this) I can say that quantum physics describes that we are all,
essentially, very malleable forms of energy--energy that can easily manifest from one form to
another (from one person to another--in fact you and I are exchanging photons and electrons
right now), and that what we think of as time and space are man-made constructs that do
not reflect a larger, more accurate reality.

Hey, I'll buy that stuff changes all day long.
But did prayer have any part of it? Absolutely not.
You'd have to discard all logic to think that.
 

This is not New Age mumbo-jumbo---this is scientific FACT, as Described by
the greatest scientists of our tiem--including Einstein, Bohr, Hawking and
every respected scientist of the last 100 years!

I can't help but think there's a flaw in the chain somewhere.
If you have a URL where Hawking says "Prayer works and that's a scientific fact,"
I will forever amend my ridiculing to say "most scientists" agree with me.
 

Quantum physics--the most essential of all sciences, has no real problem acknowledging
the very real possibility of changes in the molecular make up of  materials as being a result
of interactions between energy fields (which are, more ultimately, what we are made of).
From a scientific point of view, healing and prayer is not really a sociolo/religio matter of
people praying a sectarian prayer, but a matter of fluctuations of energy fields within energy fields.
THAT'S the REAL science of it---not necessarily the efficacy of Christian prayer itself.

OK.
 

When you say that such research is in defiance of science, you are, more accurately, stating it is
in defiance of NEWTONIAN/CARTESIAN science--which was out-dated as the best way to
describe reality over a century ago.

OK.
 

If you're interested in 'catching up' on what modern science is about, I would suggest, as a couple
of "starter" books written in lay terms, The Tao of Physics-by F. Capra, and The Dancing Wu Li
Master-G. Zukav.  Are you aware of the basic principles of quantum physics and relativity?

Tony, you're saying if I "catch up" to science, I'll realize that prayer works?
You're asking me to sacrifice that which I know to be true for whatever's behind Door Number 3.
 

If not, at the very least, Bartcop, would you acknowledge that you are not aware of what modern
science might have to say about such phenomena?

ha ha
I admit I don't know what you're talking about, but yes, that's ignorance on my part.
 

I must again admit, however, that while there may be some credibility to such scientific research,
it is all too often distorted and twisted by the right-wing yahoos wanting to find ANY excuse to
project their specific and narrow religiosity onto everyone around them. Therein lies the REAL
danger of such research--not the research itself, but the distortion of information by the right-wing.

But if prayer works, why do they need to distort anything?
If prayer worked, we'd all be rich, young and healthy, right?
 

And, again, just because I disagree with you on this one matter doesn't mean I don't appreciate
and respect your larger contributions. And wish me luck at The Monte Carlo Hotel & Resort in
Vegas when I go there to get married and have a vacation while I'm there in early January!

Tony Tackitt
Amarillo (K-Drag big-time!)
Texas
 

You're getting married!!
Congrats, Dude!

And you don't need luck when you get to Vegas.
Just pray before each slot pull - because prayer works.
 

Please write a full trip report - tell us about your room, where you ate, gambled, drank,
what shows you saw, what attractions you saw (you going to Area 51?)

Thanks for the note,

bc